RTI Success Stories - How a road for Marhari village is built with one RTI

Lt Col.V.K. Mishra probably never knew the power RTI yields till he decided to use it to get information on the work done in his village in the last 67 years. Just asking for the information in paper translated into tangible roads for the village that he lived in.

Belonging to a village called Marhari remotely tucked away in Eastern Uttar Pradesh in tehsil Harraiya , District Basti. Col.Mishra has seen absolutely no development work in his village since independence. Since his childhood he has seen many people pass away due to untimely medical help received as a result of lack of roads. During the rains, when the area is flooded with water and all illness common in this season is high in intensity, the number of people who died increased drastically.

It was difficult to understand that when India was emerging as a greater power internationally, there were still villages where basic facilities such as roads had still not made their way. They remain unconnected and cut off from mainland probably the only ways of information travelling being through people who commuted by foot to other villages and towns.

Finally in 2013, Mishra filed an RTI enquiring about all development projects in his village. This laid foundation to the building of roads to his village. The simple RTI that he filed woke up the local administration and put it in gear. Today Mishra is a happy man, having lived to see a road being built to his village 67 years after independence and laying a milestone on how future development works can be done through RTI.

It is said that RTI is the simplest act that has been introduced in the history of India. But it certainly is not merely an act. Every word of it has power to translate inactiveness on part of the governing body to action.